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helicopter
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helicopter; vertical flight A timeline of helicopter history with labeled black-and-white drawings, starting from the Chinese flying top in 1100, Leonardo da Vinci's helical airscrew in 1483, Launoy and Bienvenu's feather model in 1784, Sir George Cayley's steam-powered model in 1843, Paul Cornu's man-carrying helicopter in 1907, Petroczy and von Karman's tethered helicopter in 1916, de la Cierva's autogiro in 1923, Focke Achgelis Fa 61 in 1936, and Sikorsky VS-300, the first practical U.S. helicopter, in 1939. boatswain; helicopter Labeled diagram of a helicopter's main rotor assembly showing the rotor blade, blade grip, rotor hub, yoke, stabilizer bar with weight at the end, push-pull tube, and mast.
Know how a helicopter stays up in the air and how its rotor generates lift
Diagram showing how a helicopter's movement is controlled by changing the pitch of the main rotor blades, with labeled illustrations for moving up, forward, backward, sideways, hovering, turning, and descending. helicopter Bell Jet Ranger 206-B police helicopter Mi-12 helicopter
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police helicopter
helicopter summary
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NASA's Reduced Gravity Program provides the unique weightless or zero-G environment of space flight for testing and training of human and hardware reactions. NASA used the turbojet KC-135A to run these parabolic flights from 1963 to 2004.
Man-Made Birds in the Sky
Hindenburg zeppelin crashing, 1937
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helicopter; vertical flight
helicopter; vertical flight Components of a helicopter.

helicopter

aircraft
Written by
Walter James Boyne
Former director, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1983–86. Author of The Leading Edge and many others.
Walter James Boyne
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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•History

helicopter, aircraft with one or more power-driven horizontal propellers or rotors that enable it to take off and land vertically, to move in any direction, or to remain stationary in the air. Other vertical-flight craft include autogiros, convertiplanes, and V/STOL aircraft of a number of configurations. The idea of taking off vertically, making the transition to horizontal flight to the destination, and landing vertically has been for centuries the dream of inventors. It is the...

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